May 26, 2005

With a vengeance

Oh yeah. I knew that weird feeling would go away. You know, that feeling where I briefly consider finishing things and only having a couple of works in progress. Turns out that not only was I completely validated by the blog, but that destiny is totally on my side. ( I was particularly moved by Sock Jedi Sandi's comments.
"A Sock Harlot are you. Deny it you cannot. Your destiny it is. Knit you must."

As a matter of fact, I had just about decided to cast on for a pair of socks in the Feather and Fan pattern from "Socks, Socks, Socks" that Cassie used, and I was only trying to decide between two different sock yarns (A or B?)

when the doorbell rang. Now, we have not spoken much about this, because I prefer my excesses to be inferred rather than graphic, but you can imagine that over the course of the last leg of the tour I may have bought some yarn. (Let's let the *some* be vague.) Laurie (That Laurie) met up with me on my last day of said yarn extravaganza book tour, and did the best thing that a yarn buddy can do. She mailed what wouldn't fit in my suitcase. The doorbell was the package arriving. Since I was tired and hopped up on merino when I packed the box in a dark parking lot, it was a pleasure discovering what was inside.

This made me forget about socks. Kid Silk Haze for Birch. Two balls. Yup. Two balls. At the Stitch 'n Bitch it turns out that Birch takes three. I'm crushed, but notice that Megan has two balls in stock so I call home to get Amanda to read me the lot numbers.
They don't match. (Of Course they don't match. Why would they match? Would the fates be that kind? No. The fates don't knit. The fates are toying with me through lot numbers and a viciously bad memory that won't let me buy correct amounts of yarn. Dumbass.)

Plan B. Buy three balls of new Kid Silk Haze from Megan, trade her my two and pay for one.
No. Megan only has two balls.

Plan C. Knit a Birch that only takes two balls.
No. Birch is a top down shawl. If I miscalculated I would run out of yarn and want to kill myself or a nearby innocent bystander.

Plan D. Knit a Birch that only takes two balls but knit it from the bottom up so that I can quit when I run out. This plan involves writing a chart for Birch and then turning the chart upside down and knitting it that way. (Sounds too simple to work doesn't it?)

It does work, but the idea is abandoned anyway because if I'm going to knit a Kid Silk shawl then I'm not going to skimp. (Feel free to note the date and the time. I don't often resort to swatching.) I'm going whole hog. Why feel bad about having a smaller than average Birch for the rest of your life (and end up compensating with really big needles or something...) when you just had to hunt up another ball. I bet Jill at Kaleidoscope has more, and besides....even if I have a third ball I don't want to knit this shawl in a way that means that the rows get longer and longer. That's begging for crushing defeat.

Plan E. Knit it the regular way, get another ball of yarn and carry on. Yup sirree. I cast on for Birch (299 stitches...but I'm not bitter) and knit two rows before it occurs to me that I'm a moron. I should totally not knit even one more stitch of this until I know I can get more.

This morning I called Jill at Kaleidoscope Yarns and cheerfully asked her to nip another wee ball out to me. Jill, just as cheerfully, told me they have no more of that dye lot.

Plan F. I'm mailing Jill back my two balls and she's mailing me three of a new, but matching dye lot. I'm pretty fond of Jill today. Despite the fact that this plan means that I have to wait to cast on...(you know me. Instant gratification takes too long.) I will be able to knit Birch the fun, full sized way....Soon.

I'm going back to the sock plan as soon as I decide which yarn to use.

For those of you who voted yesterday for Option C: knit whatever you want but put more eligible knit-friendly bachelors on the blog...I give you Tim's profile. (The following profile was not approved by Tim, who is so charming that he would never say he was.)

Tim is a 37 year old guitar player who has recently returned to Toronto after escaping a really great record deal in LA which threatened to leave him a hollow broken man with no soul or will to live. Luckily, he fled his rock n' roll lifestyle and the perils of incredibly thin women and very expensive accessories and is now a desperately charming Harbour Captain with a stunning gift for literary reference and bizarre music lyrics. We know that all this makes him sound like a good catch, but caution you to seriously think over the words "guitar player" and all that they infer before this goes even one tiny step further.